The football brand dilemma

Abstract

Brands symbolize our market-dominated, globalizing world. Football brands are particularly well suited for an economy of attention where branded goods are worth more because of their connection to abstract ideas. Football is media friendly, and, in its current incantations, corporate friendly. While football teams are bound to particular places such as Manchester or Madrid, they garner massive global TV audiences that dwarf the in-stadium crowd. The ambivalent relationship between a football team and a place is a hallmark of our times. Football teams are community goods – they require people to give them value and meaning, but what people and where? What happens when fans attempt to go from symbolic to real owners of a team? The mutiny of a group of Lazio fans serves as an illustration of the tension between the performance of fandom and the market logics of branding.

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